MWC 2016: The story of mobile phones is no longer exciting, VR is becoming the new favorite of manufacturers

If we mark the technology events on the map in the form of hot spots, Barcelona will undoubtedly become the hot spot this week. With the opening of MWC 2016, almost all mobile communication manufacturers from all over the world have gathered in this city in Spain. Compared with CES, the entertainment atmosphere of MWC is much inferior. The professionalism of exhibitors in the field of mobile communications makes the tone of the exhibition more technical. For industry insiders, no exhibition can better reflect the development trend of mobile communications than MWC.

This year's MWC naturally did not deviate from the theme, and mobile phones were still the highlight of the entire exhibition. Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC, Gionee, and Xiaomi's new generation of mobile phones were unveiled at the exhibition, and they attracted media attention in turn. At the same time, the confrontation between Apple and the FBI continued, and technology industry leaders continued to speak for one of them. The level of attention on social networks was even no less than that of the entire MWC.

Although Apple has been criticized for its lack of innovation since the iPhone 4S, and its sales have begun to decline after the iPhone 6 created a miracle, it is undeniable that these have not changed the fact that Apple has become a dominant force in the mobile communications industry. So far, the company's every move is still the focus of the entire industry.

However, whether it is Apple, Sony or other manufacturers, they are all facing the drawbacks brought by the gradual maturity of the mobile phone industry: functional saturation, excess performance, the upgrade of the new generation of products is almost equivalent to the insignificant update of the processor and system, and the key to the remaining standardization issues is no longer whether it can be done but whether it is willing to be done. Especially for mass consumers, if the progress of technology cannot be reflected in the user experience level in the same way, it will be difficult to get the attention it deserves. Huawei and ZTE began to enter the notebook computer market, and released the MateBook and Spro Plus respectively at the MWC this year. It is hard to say that there is no consideration in this.

How will this situation be improved? To make an inappropriate analogy, when there are no viruses to be detected and killed, how can antivirus software companies prove their presence? Back to the issue of excess hardware performance, the famous Andy Bill theorem in the IT industry predicts that the performance improvement of hardware will soon be consumed by software. In other words, a new application is likely to bring new stimulation to the improvement of mobile phone hardware.

On the first day of MWC, the Samsung S7 launch conference may bring us some inspiration. Putting aside the product, this may be the first mobile phone launch conference in history that allows the audience to watch live with the help of VR. Also released at the same time was the Gear 360 multi-lens panoramic camera. Similar to the Gear VR, this product can only be adapted to the Galaxy S6 or newer Samsung phones. It seems that using VR as a starting point to form a binding with peripheral products has become a major strategy for Samsung's mobile phone product marketing. Even without these auxiliary peripherals, VR itself is an application with extremely high hardware requirements.

First of all, VR technology has very high requirements for resolution. 4K display is an entry-level indicator recognized by the industry, but the current display standard cannot meet the needs of players to see distant objects clearly. Similarly, the image display performance of mobile devices now rarely meets the requirements of VR. The performance gain of chip GPU can improve this. If VR applications are written into user needs in the future, it means that the upgrading of hardware equipment is also essential. At that time, VR mobile phones may become a new market gap.

Is such a vision possible?

At this year's MWC, in addition to Samsung, established mobile phone manufacturers LG and HTC launched their own VR products: LG launched VR glasses LG 360 VR and the matching panoramic camera LG 360 Cam, and HTC announced the full price of the Vive Pre consumer version. Huawei also revealed that it has put its VR project on the agenda. Facebook President Zuckerberg took the stage at Samsung's press conference and announced that the company's new team Social VR will develop "social applications" for Oculus. In his view, VR is not only a new social platform, but also a computing platform after smartphones.

When a smart person is doing something incomprehensible, the people who come to watch the fun may be the forerunners; when another smart person joins in, the ordinary people are still watching the fun; when a group of smart people start to work on this thing, if you still turn a deaf ear, then I'm sorry, maybe you don't even have the opportunity to change the world with others. Who knows whether VR products will become the real protagonist of MWC in the future?

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.